


I Scream, You Scream

by MidnightGardener



Series: The Riga Safe House [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, Ice Cream, M/M, Riga safe house, Surprises, downtime in Latvia, nicky sings in the bath, over reactions, prove me wrong, singing u2 in the bath, the joshua tree album
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27837484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightGardener/pseuds/MidnightGardener
Summary: Nicky loves ice cream... and singing U2 songs in the bath.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Riga Safe House [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962133
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	I Scream, You Scream

**Author's Note:**

> Another fluff piece in the Riga safe house.
> 
> This kind of wrote itself, and ran away from me.
> 
> Unbeta'ed and I make no apologies.

“I’M BACK!” Nicky calls out as he struggles through the front door with a box full of groceries. He kicks the door closed with his heel once he’s navigated his way inside, and it closes with a loud click as the deadbolt re-engages.

His announcement is met with a dull silence, only broken by the steady tick of the clock from the living room and the soft creak of the house settling in the later summer afternoon. Nicky awkwardly stretches his left arm across the box balanced in his right, and tosses his keys on to the hall table. He readjusts both his hands under the box for ease of carrying.

When there’s no response he calls out: “JOE?” 

There’s still no answer, which makes Nicky frown a little. Joe hadn’t mentioned anything about going out today.

‘Today… of all days.’ Nicky feels a smidge of bitterness at the thought of Joe going out today. But he shakes his head of the thought.

“JOE? ANDY, NILE? I’M BACK!”

He moves from the dark hallway into the living room which is empty. One of Joe’s sketch books is lying on the coffee table, a charcoal pencil marking a page. There’s an empty coffee mug sitting next to it (‘not on a coaster’, Nicky notes narrowing his eyes slightly). Nicky shifts the grocery box to his right hip again, and reaches down with his spare hand to pick up the cup. There’s still some latent warmth retained in the ceramic of the mug, so it’s not long used.

Nicky’s frown deepens as he turns towards the door to the kitchen-diner. He pauses and listens carefully. He can’t hear anything other than the distant call of a turtle dove and the continuing gentle creaking of the house. Reaching under his tshirt, for his below waistband holster, Nicky carefully steps through the door from the living room. He pulls his left hand back and exhales, his shoulders sagging in relief. Nile is perched on the kitchen bench cross legged. She’s flicking through a magazine, her earbuds jammed in her ears and a bag of potato chips in her lap.

“NILE!” Nicky puts the box on the dining table.

This time he’s close enough that she hears him, and she starts suddenly yanking her earbuds out of her ears. “Jesus, Nicky! You scared me!”

Nicky scoops a head of cauliflower and a bag of potatoes out of the box, and heads into the kitchen area. He pauses slightly to tap Nile’s knee with his index finger.

“We’ve told you before, you shouldn’t have your earphones in when you’re alone!” He chastises her lightly. “You never know who could sneak up on you.”

Nile sighs, “Yeah okay, I know.”

She sets the earbuds on the counter, and plunges her hand into the chip bag.

“Is Joe upstairs?” Nicky asks as he shuttles between the groceries and the kitchen, putting items away.

“Ummm…” Nile licks salt off her fingers. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Nicky’s voice is muffled as he ducks his head into the fridge, stowing the milk and a dozen eggs. “Well that’s very strange.”

“Oh, he hasn’t gone out. I mean, he was around somewhere. I think I saw him out in the backyard earlier?” Nile is peering into the chip bag with one eye. She throws her head back then, and funnels the remaining crumbs into her mouth.

“Hmmm…” Nicky’s face is a mix of mild suspicion of Joe’s whereabouts, and disapproval of Nile’s eating habits. He turns his attention back to the groceries, and goes to open the freezer compartment, a bag of peas in his hand.

“Well where is Andy then?”

“Oh, Andy is  _ definitely _ out! She left about half hour ago? She just mentioned she wouldn’t be back until later.” Nile crushed the foil bag between her two hands, and scrambled down from the counter.

“Oh… and she also told me not let you look in the free….”

Nicky slams the freezer door shut, and stands bolt upright. 

He can’t believe it.

“I can’t believe it.” He grinds out between gritted teeth.

“Uh…. Nicky…..?”

“I can’t  _ fucking _ believe it!” Nicky spins on his heel, eyes wild and jaw working hard. “It’s GONE! It’s ALL GONE!!”

Nile continued to scrunch the empty chip packet into a ball. Nicky swearing punctuates the point that he’s upset, he usually rarely utters more than a ‘damn’ in frustration. If this bothers Nile in any way however, she doesn’t let on. Instead she moves smoothly to the waste bin, steps on the pedal and drops the packet into the open receptacle.

Nicky’s hands ball into fists by his side, “Andy.”

His voice is low, and almost dangerous sounding.

“Fucking, Andy.”

Nile blinks at Nicky, and shakes her head slightly.

“Andy?”

“She. Ate. My. Ice. Cream,” Nicky grinds out each word as if he were chewing a mouthful of nails.

“Uh….” for the first time Nile looks somewhat worried. She glances over her shoulder towards the doorway to the lounge area, then back at Nicky whose top lip is curling on the left hand side. It’s enough that his teeth are slightly bared and he has a slightly feral appearance to his countenance which is particularly alien to Nicky, except for those occasions when Joe is in (im)mortal danger.

Nicky turns back to the freezer, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He growls quietly to himself, “First they forget about today, then I have to go pick up the groceries on my own, and THEN Andy eats my ice cream.”

He doesn’t notice Nile quietly tiptoe from the kitchen, and slip out almost silently through the front door. Sullenly, Nicky proceeds to thump around the kitchen throwing items into cupboards and the refrigerator. He hurls a cauliflower so forcefully into the crisper drawer it almost bounces straight out again. Once he’s finished putting away the groceries, Nicky brews himself an extra strong espresso, throws it back like it’s a tequila shot and then stomps upstairs to draw himself a hot bath.

XxxxxX

“NICKY!” Joe calls as he steps through the front door, closing it behind him. “HAYATI!”

There’s no answer, and Joe steps forward into the hallway toeing the bump in the floor rug trying to flatten it out.

“NICKY!” Joe calls out again, and is met again with silence.

He frowns slightly and shakes his head. Nile had reported that Nicky was, in her words: *“Hatin’ on Andy because of the ice cream.”*

While he knew that Nicky would be somewhat irritated about the frozen dairy confection theft, he didn’t quite expect the type of reaction that Nile had described.

_ “He had STEAM coming out of his ears. Like, LITERALLY!” _

Joe goes to the foot of the stairs, and grabs onto the banister. He stops and listens carefully. The creaking of the house, the ticking clock… and barely perceptible is the distant sound of water swishing.

“HAYATI!” Joe calls out again, then pushes off on his left foot to climb the stairs. On the landing Joe walks towards the bathroom. He doesn’t creep exactly, but he makes sure his footfalls are soft enough that he doesn’t startle Nicky. He stops at the closed door and drops his forehead against it.

There’s the quiet strains of U2s ‘Joshua Tree’ album with Bono’s slightly tinny voice crooning ‘With or Without You’. Clearly Nicky had once again failed at being able to pair his phone to the Bluetooth speaker despite hours of Nile’s patient tuition. A breathy, accented voice starts to sing along:

_ ”And you giiiive yourself away… And you giiiiive yourself away.” _

Joe smiles slightly to himself, and then taps lightly on the door, “Nicolo…”

The singing stops suddenly.

“Nicolo.” Joe says again. “Can we talk?”

There is a dull silence in response, broken only by the dirge of Adam Clayton’s opening bass line for ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’.

Joe sighs, “Nicolo I…”

“There is nothing to talk about,” comes the abrupt answer.

“I think you scared Nile a little with your reaction to the ice cream…”

There’s a loud sloshing noise as Nicky suddenly sits up in the bath tub.

“Andy STOLE my ice cream!”

Joe turns and leans heavily against the door, running a hand down his face tugging at his beard. “Nicky, I think we both know this isn’t about Andy taking your ice cream.”

“IT WAS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH!”

Taking a deep breath through his nose, and exhaling noisily from his mouth Joe stood up straighter and muttered, “Okay.”

He turned and placed his hand on the burnished brass door handle.

“Nicolo,” Joe’s voice became more forceful and authoritarian. “I want you to get out of the bath now, and come out. Please. This is… this is just getting silly. I know how much you were looking forward to that ice cream… hell we ALL know how much you love ice cream.  _ Especially  _ chocolate chip cookie dough. But come on, let’s give Andy a break. She’s gone through a lot this last year, and I think that perhaps we just have to be a little patient with…”

Joe stops short as he hears water draining out of the tub. As the last dregs of the water gurgle away the door handle suddenly jiggles under Joe’s hand, and he jumps back as if it has become red hot. The door opens to reveal Nicky wrapped in a fluffy white robe, and a towel wound around his head like a turban.

For a beat, they both stand at the threshold of the bathroom, blinking at each other. Then suddenly Nicky steps forward into Joe’s space.

Joe mistakes the movement as a moment of intimacy and leans his face forward, eyes closing slightly as he tilts his head an parts his lips for a kiss. It’s an abortive attempt however, as NIcky pushes past him and heads towards one of the bedrooms.

Rolling his eyes, and eliciting another sigh Joe spins on his heel and chases after his husband. 

“Nicky!”

In the bedroom, Nicky is scrubbing at his hair with the towel. He drops it on the floor, along with his robe and then walks over to the antique walnut dresser to retrieve some fresh clothing. Joe swipes the damp towel and robe off the rug and hangs both on the back of the door.

“Nicky…”Joe feels like a broken record. “I thought perhaps we could…”

Nicky pulls a navy t-shirt over his head, his hair which he is wearing longer these days, sticks up at obscure angles that normally Joe would find endearing. At this point in time though, he’s more frustrated than filled with fondness. If only Nicky would just stop and listen…

“What?” Nicky runs his hand through his damp hair to slick it back slightly. He fixes Joe with a hard stare. “We could what, Joe?”

“Go get… “ Joe finds himself floundering slightly. “... ice cream?” He offers pathetically.

With a loud scoff, Nicky slips his feet into a pair of black sneakers and heads out the bedroom door. Joe takes chase and jogs down the stairs after Nicky. He finds him by the front door shrugging on a jacket.

“Nicky, please.” Joe reaches for Nicky’s arm and catches hold of his sleeve, tugging at it. “Can we just move past this please?”

Nicky stops and his shoulders visibly sag. He lets out a sigh which is more world weary than perhaps Joe thinks the situation deserves, but he would never begrudge his Nicky the right to air his grievances. His feelings are valid, and Joe will die over and over again to uphold that for his husband.

Joe places his hands on Nicky’s shoulders and turns him to face him. Then he places his hands on either side of Nicky’s face. Joe strokes Nicky’s high cheekbones gently with the pads of his thumbs. Nicky closes his eyes momentarily and bites on his lower lip.

Leaning down ever so slowly, Joe gently presses his lips against that lush mouth he loves so much. As he pulls away briefly before bringing their foreheads together, to breathe the same breath.

“Joe….” Nicky whispers. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“Ssh ssh ssh!” Joe reaches up and puts a finger to Nicky’s lips.

Then he grins suddenly

“Come on… I have something to show you…”

Nicky’s brows knit together in confusion.

Joe pulls away and makes for the door, wrenching it open. He looks back over his shoulder, then grabs at Nicky’s hand.

“Come on!”

Nicky’s still frowning but allows himself to be pulled along out the door.

Joe knows that Nicky’s silence is more borne of confusion than ire now. He’s grinning like a madman himself, as he knows what awaits them at the end of their short sojourn next door to their elderly neighbour’s house. There are the sounds of laughter as Joe pulls Nicky to the side of the house, but it suddenly stops as he pushes a small gate open and its ancient hinges screech.

As they round the corner into the back yard, Nicky is suddenly confronted with the other half of his family. Andy and Nile are standing smiling with Kundze Ozola with a wide grin across her gently wrinkled face.

A combined: “Happy birthday!! /  Daudz laimes dzimšanas dienā!!” fills the air.

Joe is smiling with absolute glee at the open surprise on Nicky’s face. And if his face could split in two, it would at the way Nicky’s mouth drops open in surprise as Andy and Nile step aside from the table they’re standing in front of to reveal an ice cream cake.

Andy looks only slightly sheepish as she looks from the cake to Nicky, “Sorry about the ice cream, Nicky.”

“Dio!” Nicky gasps, and turns to look at Joe his eyes filling with tears.

Joe leans in wrap his arms around Nicky, and land a kiss on his cheek.

“Happy birthday, habibi.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I imagine that the fam only celebrate birthday's ever few years... otherwise it would get pretty old, pretty fast. :P


End file.
